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Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Arno Breker sculpture containing Kenaz symbolism

Kenaz - the rune of kingship and kin

This is an interesting rune and has quite a vast and varied range of meanings.

There is one aspect of this rune which represents the king. 'King' is from the Anglo-Saxon Cyning. Other Germanic words for king are - Dutch koning, Old Norse konungr, Danish konge, Old Saxon and Old High German kuning, Middle High German künic, German König - all from the Proto-Germanic *kuningaz. This is also the root of the Lithuanian 'kunigas' meaning 'clergyman'. The word Khan is no doubt related via a shared Germanic Persian Aryan heritage.

The word King is connected to kin and also kindred. These are our Kind, and our Kith.

It is from the ken rune that we get our silent k in many English words - K_nowledge for example, Middle English kitthe meant 'people, race, kinsmen, family' but also 'knowledge'.

We also find this rune spelt with a C instead of the K. From this root we get words like Cunning, which again means 'to know'. The Old English cunnan meant 'know, have power to, be able' (also 'to have carnal knowledge), from the Proto-Germanic *kunnan 'to be mentally able, to have learned' (cognates: Old Norse kenna 'to know, make known,' Old Frisian kanna 'to recognize' German kennen 'to know', Gothic kannjan 'to make known').

From the Cun root we get Can (as in being 'able to') and Cunning. The same root gives us words like 'cunt', which only in modern days does the word carry vulgar meanings. So there is certainly a male and female side to the rune - Kin and Cun.

This is one aspect of the rune. We read in the Anglo Saxon rune poem that Cen is the torch. Cen is often associated with the pine tree - a wood which we get kindling from. We can already see the connection between the words kindle and kind etc. In fact there is an old English word 'Kindel' which means 'the give birth' which may connect back with the word 'cunt'?

There are various rune shape which all connect with this rune.

various Kenaz/Kaun/Cen rune forms

In these versions we see the smoke rising from the fire - the kindle/kindling and perhaps the 'Cun' feminine aspect in the second.

SS member and rune-student Alfred Ritcher connected this style of rune - Kaun - with the Heil salute of National Socialism. -Link-

In a dream I had sometime ago (detailed here on Wulf's blog) I saw a Ken rune, the rune of kingship, merge with the Odal rune. The rune represented the crown and kinged the rune of Woden, to become the rune of Ing - his son. Ing is the Crowned and Conquering son of Woden.

The Ken rune crowning the Odal rune (Woden) forming a rune binding and the Ing rune.